blabber phase #02

i think blabber phases shall become a regular feature on this blog. i’d probably even dedicate a space for it on the top bar, once i have blabbered enough. 

from the last post one possibility: what if all friends and acquaintances land up one day to teach me the important lesson of keeping in touch? see that doesn’t excite. as much as the high moralistic result of that story, placed on a protagonist such as me – so reclusive, so forgetful, so choosy about phone calls or emails or dinners and lunches – might appeal universally on a sentimental level, as probably a sunday afternoon film on star movies, i don’t see it going any further than that. however, i do comprehend writers of sunday afternoon films on star movies do earn in numbers i can’t even talk about. 

nevertheless, making that life-changing story impossible, because i am just stubborn to change that about me, i have to move on. that means more blah blah blah. the problem with real life characters is that people stereotype and i haven’t really studied psychology or psychoanalysis that much, even in terms of theatre, to fuck an audience up mentally by playing around with how they relate to stereotypes. and maybe, that is for a later date, something i can’t really be ambitious about right now. note written, kept, if someone else does work that handles this i should scrap book it so i can create a delusion of how i am still very interested and curious about this. but in fact i am interested. i just don’t see myself doing anything concrete anytime soon. so for now the morale will be low. note saved for later. 

ingi has been sitting right next to me for the last post and as I am typing this one. one of her eyes are open. she sometimes sleeps like that, just to keep a watch on me. when i am alone i can get very stupid. maybe, not work. maybe, drink too much coffee. maybe, switch on the tv. maybe, flip from here focus on something else other than writing, because then I wouldn’t have to feel so bad about myself. apparently writer’s block is one of the most common topics written about in the online world. not surprised. but, i have to come to a conclusion writer’s block is basically this – you want to say something, you just don’t know what it is, and you can’t really believe you can have something to say to this world. and you have already crystallized the forms in which you need what you want to say to come out even without figuring what the fuck is actually in your head and hence the silent evenings on the terrace convincing yourself that you have this metaphysical mental block towards writing. i think it’s a little pointless in hovering about this imaginary block of wood, instead of just getting down to the physical act of it and then desperately hoping maybe now, maybe in seven years time, you will manage to crack what you want to say to the world. 

slump. 

what do you want to say to the world sam? ha. non fiction is so much easier way to say that you know. ah just shut up will you, say it or i’ll chop your head off. 

recently, i came to the solution that the prison (as much as believe the current college) as an institution is pointless. why? okay, i was supposed to wait till i put this together as an “essay” for chai kadai, but you know what i don’t think i’ll be pouring any of the bullshit in my head in any form, if i don’t forget about forms

ingi over the years has actually acquired many human behaviourisms, or actually our behaviorisms. she is sleeping now and she is twitching her legs like me, lying on her side as she was just a smaller replica of baba, and almost snoring like sudha. 

so forgetting forms. forgotten. last month’s note in puck bulletin by pushkar raj got me thinking about the state of prisons in india. the koodankulam struggle, the arrest of soni sori, and free speech being jailed day after day in this country, got me thinking about what is this whole point of arresting and detaining and what the State uses it for. i actively started thinking about this only a couple of months ago, after many people i knew by name or face were either harassed by police or arrested for being part of protests for a more dignified life, whether in Koodankulam, Kodungaiyur, Kalpakkam, Manipur, Tibet, or Chattisgarh. 

the prison industrial complex debate has been brought to front by activists part of the critical resistance in the past few years (in America). the brown v plata was a decision taken by US Supreme Court last year mandating California to reduce their prison populations by 30,000 (137.5%). now, california government’s solution for this is to shift tens of thousands of prisoners from the state to the county level, therefore opening the doors for funds that will help them expand their county jails. critical resistance has been fighting for a long time to dismantle one of the planet’s largest prison systems which constantly attacks the state’s poor, working class and communities of color. more information is available in long research reports by these human rights organizations, and with quoting them specifically i should be able to elucidate this further. 

however, quite a bit of overload on lectures by prof. angela davis, prof. ruth wilson, and prof. john smith. wondering about the origin of why we think its okay to punish and on why the prison (and its related atrocities like death penalty) on a governmental (universal) level is marketed as the best institutional possibility of correcting a society. so instead of focusing on prison reform here should we rather be looking for prison abolition, an alternative to prisons. and will that not be a more humanitarian protest? wondering only. not throwing accusations. why have we misconceived punishment (positive and negative enforcements) as a method of instruction, as one of ‘structural equilibria of society’?

last night, rahul and i talked about how it is so tough focus while researching. with so information available to us, and so much not available to us (which we can get to only if we have finished plodding through what is already there) there is so much to know, so much to ask, and so much more to know about. every day. the personal ethics of meticulous workaholic researchers like so many others i know. no personal ethics at all and we are still developing it. see our colleges didn’t really demand any kind of academic inquiry into our subjects. so other than personal motives to dig and delve through history, there wasn’t really any external need to be academic. now the only thing college wanted out of us was attendance in boring lectures, which was essentially teachers dictating notes, we writing it down, and hall tickets, pink slips, blue slips, and yellow. 

but coming back to storytelling and whatever it is that i do, i really don’t know where to go. i read all these short stories last week, you know in between reading up on the all the laws and acts and debates relating to prisons. thought of adapting. i love the idea of adaptations. adapting julius caesar convinced me i could spend time in theatre. but i don’t know actually adaptation. adapt what? nothing seems to excite me. slump. 

what fight do i fight to be sure of what i want to be vocal about on stage, in life or anywhere? and do i see it as even a possibility for me to recreate this anger in the mode of storytelling? it is the magical realism of toni morrison, gabriel garcia marquez, folk tales,  george melies that excites me. that is what i want. 

… okay for a few minutes there i went off to Facebook. sorry. digression. anyway, there bernard bate had put up a link to this amazing discovery of a black hole devouring a star in the centre of a galaxy 2.7 billion years away. now there is one in the centre of the milky way too, “our” galaxy. and i think a spectacular dinner scene is what my play shall be. a hungry bloody black hole in the middle of a galaxy in the middle of no where, trying to choose from its menu a small snack, and maybe let’s throw in there an orbiting planet filled with delusional living beings. now the executional possibilities of this could cause yet another slump, but for now, this is what we can work on. 

limitations:

# cast

# time (one ten minute play and 53 minute play)

# budget

# deadlines (23rd May and 31st July)